ITAR-TASS: World - Contact Group on Ukraine meeting in Minsk
▻http://en.itar-tass.com/world/750396
A meeting of the Contact Group on the Ukrainian crisis settlement has started in Belarusian capital Minsk.
Like last time on September 5, the talks involve former Ukrainian president and the current president’s special envoy Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) Igor Plotnitsky.
First deputy DPR premier Andrey Purgin, LPR Supreme Council chairman Alexey Karyakin, Russia’ s ambassador to Kiev Mikhail Zurabov and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini are also taking part.
According to Kuchma, the Trilateral Contact Group comprising Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE will consider a memorandum whose first point is how to stop hostilities in Ukraine’s embattled southeast.
He expressed hope for progress and added that the issue of the OSCE’s role in strengthening the security regime on the Russian-Ukrainian border was also on the agenda. Besides, Kuchma said, the OSCE should take under its control “the situation with the zone that will have a local self-government”.
Karyakin confirmed to ITAR-TASS earlier today that the meeting’s key goal will be to negotiate issues of strengthening the ceasefire regime.